When death speaks, everything comes to a halting silence. King Abdullah’s death is a great loss to the country. During his decade-long reign, the country has been able to change its skin in so many diverse areas, the country has been able to face and talk and discuss a lot of its shortcomings and challenges on its route to the future.
King Abdullah was a true patriot with so many dreams and ambitions for his people, for Muslims, for the region and for the entire world. Foreign observers appear to have missed this important aspect of our beloved king’s personality while writing obituaries following his demise.
It is next to impossible to be able to comment and discuss the political scene in this area of the world without properly understanding its social and historical dynamics. Even for us who belong to this land, with our high ambitions and dreams to see this country progressing in a way mirroring its resources and potentials, we sometimes tend to forget the historical and social obstacles and constraints.
We are not perfect, we still have a lot to do, but that does not mean we did not move, we did not change in the past few years. Any unbiased observer would be able to spot the changes; infrastructure projects, governmental services, education and scholarship programs, and women presence in the public life. Look at these issues through a western point of view and you will find nothing, but put them into the social and historical context of this country and the region, and you would see that we had come a long way, with a lot yet to come.
Billion upon billions of riyals have been invested in the land and people of this country. We could have achieved more, but we are still achieving. We could have done better but we are learning from our mistakes. We are alive, hoping for a better future, and trying to work our way through to reach it.
Having said all of that, what we do really miss in Saudi Arabia is an effective media arm that is able to show the true image of the country to the whole world. I have been watching some news reports and social media presenting western views on the country in the past few days, and the amount of distorted images, misconceptions, and sometime outright lies about the country are laughably sad!
This is not the land of evil, oppression, of women needing a permission to breath, of flogging, of imprisonment, of maniacs whose only wish in life is to blow themselves up; on the contrary, we are a nation like any other nation out there, filled with hopes and dreams, with its fair share of mistakes and paradoxes, with ambition and an eye on a better future, we are not monsters, nor claiming to be angels.
That is why, for a lot of us, it was normal to see tears in the eyes of Saudis when they heard about the death of the king.
Sad and disheartened as we all are, we are yet looking to the future with optimism. We still have a lot to do, and we are full of confidence that we have all what it takes to continue our journey of reform and modernization.
—
@smaldosari
